


Future Jungles

by DaughterOfTheWest, Skylark



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Desertpunk, M/M, Magic Realism, Mentioned Character Death, Mind Control, star crossed lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterOfTheWest/pseuds/DaughterOfTheWest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skylark/pseuds/Skylark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world defeated, the heir to the world's largest megacorporation and the leader of the human resistance have a chance (not really chance) meeting.</p><p>(Team Dirk<3Jake's Main Round 2 entry for HSWC 2013.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Jungles

**Author's Note:**

> Main Round 2's theme was "genre-blending," and we chose science fiction (dystopia/desertpunk/post-apocalyptic) and magic realism (though the magic realism ends up looking like fantasy because we didn't have enough words to finish world-building).
> 
> There was a 4k word limit, but this fic could have easily been 8k, if not longer. Sigh. Skylark must have spent at least 12 hours editing this piece; we had to cut over a thousand words to get the fic down to even this size.
> 
> ART CREDIT:  
> First image: [Lucy](http://zoosmellturdsmirk.tumblr.com)  
> Second image: [Stella](http://stella-rogers.tumblr.com)  
> Third image: [Meg](http://kylobe.tumblr.com) (also found [here](http://softdirks.tumblr.com))  
> Fourth image: [Granny](http://shadesofdirk.tumblr.com)  
> Fifth image: [Simba](http://simbaserket.tumblr.com)
> 
> The artists worked super hard this round. Please check out their work and give them high fives!

A spoon-shaped bullet lodges itself in the concrete wall next to Jake’s ear, and that’s when the reality of what he's doing blindsides him like a haymaker—but the fact of the matter is that if he doesn't abscond ASAP, he'll suffer much more than ringing ears and a nasty bruise or two. (Or perhaps he’d suffer less; depends what one thinks about death, he supposes.)

Beside him, the rebel rips wires from the wall panel and grabs a glinting _something_ out of his pocket. He jabs it in the security input and pivots in time to decapitate an approaching guardbot with frightening ease. The head falls and the electric heart of circuitry is gouged out, but Jake doesn’t have time to be impressed because the automatic door is hissing open and they need to escape. Now.

Jake revs Halley’s engine and the rebel hops onto the bike behind him. It should be impossible to make the narrowing gap of the closing door, but the mechanism freezes _just_ long enough to admit them speeding through the tunnel towards the outside, towards freedom and the jungle and—

_Bang._

The rebel blond slides off of the motorcycle with a quiet yelp of pain, rolling across the asphalt and clutching a blooming red blotch on his left shoulder. Jake looks behind him and everything slows. They share a moment of eye contact—page and rebel, inheritor and destroyer—and resentful resignation stains the other man's stoic face.

Jake could leave. He could ride Halley into the sunset, let the guards deal with the intruder. He could be free—but then he'd be a sad excuse for a hero.

He draws his pistol with one hand and steers the rumbling motorbike with the other. The rebel rises, clutching his sword, and drops into a fighting stance despite the blood dripping down his limp arm. He jumps when Jake rolls up behind him and starts shooting down a flying guard.

“What the hell are you doing?!” he shouts, tensing as Jake pulls him back on the bike.

“What do you think, you bloody idiot?! I’m saving your life!”

He has no more time to protest before they’re off again, the rebel holding on as best as he can with his one good arm. As they rocket out of the tunnel and into the light, Jake feels him turn and throw something. Before the drones can catch up, the exit is blocked by a web of something thick, sticky, and suspiciously reminiscent of Crocker-brand frosting.

Jake doesn’t have time to laugh because he’s too busy noticing:

There’s nothing out here.

\--

Sand dunes rise on either side of the broken-down road, and Dirk pulls his neckerchief over his nose and mouth. This is the home stretch now, he thinks with no small relief and clenches his fist in Jake’s jacket, allowing himself to relax for just a moment.

But soon Jake slows Halley to a stop and dismounts. In a flash he's scrambling up a dune, creating a sandy flurry in his wake.

"Hey, wait," Dirk shouts, "you can't just—"

Jake soon reaches the top, his wide-legged stance like a conqueror's, or a statue's. He scans the horizon as his breaths even out, and then falls still.

Dirk watches his back, the slumping slope of his broad shoulders.

After a few moments, Jake makes his way back to the bike, arms splayed to keep his balance on the shifting sand. He looks up at Dirk with a wilting smile. "I thought—” he swallows with a slight grimace. “...There aren't any jungles, are there?"

Dirk's eyes narrow in confusion. "No one's seen a plant in decades."

Jake blinks. His expression is something Dirk doesn’t understand, something lost and small.

"Ain’t safe out here," Dirk says.

Jake glances at his wounded shoulder and winces. “Oh! Righty-ho, then, back on the road."

The rest of the half-hour trip passes in silence. Eventually they stop outside a ramshackle tin shed tucked behind a sand dune. Dirk punches a code into the keypad and is answered by a young woman's voice:

“Password?”

“It’s me, Rox.”

Locks _click_ and Jake is officially past the point of no return.

\--

“Hold still,” Dirk says.

Jake freezes mid-fidget. “Sorry, er... I didn’t catch your name?”

“Strider.” He arranges his tools on a workbench beside the high-backed chair Jake is straddling, head down on his folded arms and nape exposed.

“His telecomm’s been active this whole time?” Roxy says suspiciously.

“The virus I planted is gutting their telecomm systems as we speak,” Dirk responds. He wipes an iodine-soaked sponge across Jake’s neck, making him shiver. “Don’t worry, I was careful.”

“Have you performed this procedure before?” Jake asks nervously.

“You could say that.”

“I-I don’t suppose you have any anaesthetic?”

“...Sorry.”

Jake’s eyes are wide as they stare at the floor. Roxy kneels in front of him to catch his attention, folding her arms across her knees.

“Soooo,” she says. “What brings you to the desert?”

He lights up. “Oh, my life was in the doldrums back at the Crocker estate. They rarely allowed me outside the grounds, you know, and I daresay the servants weren’t very stimulating company—” he winces as Dirk makes the first cut.

“It’s ok, calm down...” Roxy says, laying a hand on his arm. Jake’s eyes squeeze shut, but he obediently takes a deep, shaky breath. “It’ll be over soon. It hurt when he did it to me, too, but Dirk’s the best. Anyway, Jake, you were sayin’?”

“Yes, ah—recently Mother told me that I was getting hitched,” he says, and then breathes out hard through his nose.

“Married, huh? Who’s the lucky lady-man?”

“Jane—Crocker. Blast it, man, can’t you work faster? It hurts like the devil—”

“This shit’s delicate. I don’t want to hurt you,” he says. “I can’t rush.”

“Jane Crocker?” Roxy presses.

“My cousin. So I could be a true member of the family.” He hisses through clenched teeth. “I just—wanted to see the jungle before I settled down! Feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my face!” His eyes sparkle, and Roxy laughs.

“Well, you’ll get lotsa sun out here all right,” she says. “Don’t have much else.”

“But—no jungles,” he says, and there’s that strange note to his voice again. Jake is the heir apparent to the world's largest megacorporation, Dirk reminds himself. What could he know of loss?

Roxy laughs. “Not _yet,_ but I’m working on that!”

Jake’s face brightens, then scrunches in pain as Dirk begins to close the incision with neat, tight stitching. “Easy,” Dirk murmurs, voice low and rumbling and oddly soothing.

“You’re a trooper,” Roxy agrees, petting his cheek. “Almost done, promise. Riiiight?”

“Yeah, just a few more sutures.”

“You _promise?_ ”

Dirk pauses and meets Roxy’s challenging eyes. “Yeah, promise." Jake relaxes into Roxy's hand at that.

A few quiet moments later, Dirk cuts the last bit of thread. "Done."

Jake reaches back to touch the small seam where his telecomm used to be, but Dirk catches his hand. “Don’t touch, it’ll get infected...”

Jake’s hand is warm and soft. He’s surprised by the callus on his index finger and runs his own fingers across it before he can stop himself. Dirk recalls Jake’s gunmanship just a few hours before, and traces the quiet muscles that cord up his forearm, his shoulder, to the cut at his nape that labels him a free man.

Then he realizes he’s been staring.

“—I, uh, we don’t want you dying. Or whatever.”

“...All right,” Jake breathes.

Dirk catches Roxy’s eye and she raises an eyebrow at him. He looks down and puts his tools away.

“C’mon,” he says. “I’ll show you where you'll sleep.”

Jake's face breaks into a quick grin. “Lead on, Strider!" he says, leaping to his feet.

\--

“This is the lab," Dirk says.

The skylight floods the room with sun, and the tables are crammed with microscopes, computers, and assorted scientific doodads. In the center of the room is a sandbox filled with dry soil.

“Wowza,” Jake says, “looks like a mad scientist's lair.”

“Roxy's been trying to grow plants with the materials left by one of her mother's old contacts," Dirk explains.

Jake moves toward a table and lifts a packet labeled Pumpkin Seeds. "Seems like quite the noble undertaking."

Dirk shrugs. "She hasn't had any real results yet. Their notes indicate that they made some progress and almost had an answer to this whole fucking problem—" he lifts his head, meeting Jake's eyes squarely—"and then the Batterwitch killed them.”

Jake stares at him for a long moment. “Land sakes alive...you really are rebels.”

Dirk's eyes narrow. “And you’re really the Batterwitch’s son.”

“I’ll have you know that she took me in out of the goodness of her heart!”

Dirk rolls his eyes.

“Crockercorp protects the city's people,” Jake insists. “We provide food to the poor, give—”

“There are barely any people _left!_ Just robots, and people who’re brainwashed and fucking _corpsified._ ”

“No! I've lived with humans all my life! And I received daily reports—”

“You want to know why there aren’t any jungles, Jake?”

He’s legitimately confused, legitimately hurt. How could he be so blind?

“Go ask your mom.” Dirk storms out, leaving him alone.

Jake stands motionless for a moment, then looks down at the packet in his hand.

Plant 4-5 seeds 6-8" apart in center of a mound ~3 ft. wide. Cover with 1" soil. Surround with a moat of water. Bright sun for at least 6h/day!

He wanders into the main living area, sachet dangling from his fingers. “Roxy?”

“Yeah?” she says, nose in a book. _Complacency of the Learned,_ the cover says. _Banned material,_ Jake's brain supplies, but the urge to destroy it doesn’t come. He pauses, feeling unmoored.

“Do you...have any water?” he asks instead.

She glances at the seeds in his hand, then shakes her head. “Sorry, groundwater’s runnin’ low. Until Sawtooth finishes the new well, we don’t have much to spare.”

“I’m sure it’ll rain soon.”

Roxy stares at him. “Jakey, we're in the desert.”

“Oh, ye of little faith!” he replies, smiling. “I’ll bet you a fiver that it rains within the day.”

“Is that so?” she chortles. “Get me some rain and a martini, while you’re at it.”

\--

Jake's telecomm is barely larger than his thumbnail, and it glints angrily in the petri dish. Dirk tries to focus on his work—he’ll dispose of it later—but for all of his brainpower he can’t stop thinking about Jake, his anguished face, and that little piece of circuitry.

In a grudgingly grim way, he has to acknowledge the technical artistry of fitting so much functionality into such a little unit. It's a locator, a subliminal message vector, and a recording device for everything the host experiences: all five senses, heart rate, even thyroid excretions.

He has the entirety of Jake’s memory in the palm of his hand, and like hell he’s going to let that information go without confirming that the boy in their greenhouse is as innocently ignorant as his persona would suggest.

> TT@DS-Computer:~/$ mount /dev/CC-611112 /mnt  
>  Starting Playback—

_The woman's skin is tinged with gray, and Jake flinches away from her cold hands._

_“Where’s Grandma?” he demands._

_“She’s not coming back,” she says. “You're going to live with me now.”_

_She lifts him despite his fighting, making low, soothing noises until he sags in her hold._

_“Grandma,” he sobs._

_“Shoosh,” she whispers, stroking his face. “Mother’s got you.”_

 _—_

 _“They lie,” Nanna reads. “They have always lied.”_

_Jake jumps on his bed and gleefully answers at the top of his lungs: “They were very kind and bade me come again. Why have I never been taken among the Monkey People? They stand on their feet as I do. They—”_

_“Listen, man-cub—”_

_“Nanna, you’re ruining it!” the boy cries in a temper, flopping onto his back._

_“—I have taught thee all the Law of the Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle—except the Monkey-Folk who live in the trees. They have no law. They are outcasts.”_

_He sits up. “They have no speech of their own—”_

_“Their way is not our way."_

_“They are without leaders!”_

_“They—” The lights go out, and the maid falls silent._

_“Just to the end of the scene?” Jake begs._

_“Bedtime is at 20:00.”_

_Jake wriggles under the covers, grumbling. Nanna draws up his bedsheet, her movements jerky and slow._

_"Golly, I'd love to see the jungle someday," he says. "Won't you come with me, Nanna?"_

_“Goodnight, master English,” she says._

_Jake sighs and closes his eyes._

 _—_

 _Jane’s a looker, no doubt about it. Her ruby-red lips are pressed into a flat line, her eyes so blue that they're hard to look at. He bows over her hand and is surprised by its dead weight._

_"Please allow me to escort you inside, Miss Crocker.”_

_Slowly, Jane's head turns. She looks down at her hand, which Jake still holds, then back towards the double doors._

_He stares at her profile, bewildered. She blinks, but is otherwise motionless. “Right, then,” he stammers. “After you, miss.”_

> —End of Data.

\--

The moonlight casts Jake in silhouette. He kneels in the greenhouse soil, murmuring, "How beautiful are the noble children! Indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning—"

"What are you doing?" Dirk asks from the doorway.

Startled, he scrambles to his feet. "I planted some seeds! My nanna used to read me bedtime stories, so I thought I'd pay them the same courtesy. A little _Jungle Book_ seemed rather fitting—it's my favorite."

 _I know,_ Dirk thinks. "...You really don't get it, do you?" he sighs instead, walking towards him. Jake watches his advance with a sombering face.

"I'm not stupid," he finally says. "You look rather like him, you realize." 

Dirk stops short. Jake continues, softer: "Dave Strider, leader of the Beta Rebellion of 2026. Your—?"

Dirk observes his quiet, open expression, his tense stance. "Brother," he says at length. "My older brother."

Jake lets out a slow breath. "And you carry on in his stead," he says. "Why?"

"If you knew who I was, why'd you ask to come with me?" Dirk counters, stepping closer.

"I—" Jake gestures restlessly, frowning. "I'll sound a bit daft..."

"Not much of a change."

Jake's laugh is short. "You had to have come from outside," he says. "I espied you by the mainframes and thought, 'If I tag along, I can abscond for a bit.' I didn’t mean to hurt anyone."

"...But when I was shot, you could have escaped on your own. Why did you come back?"

"We were partners, escaping the city together! What kind of hero would I be if I'd left you in the heat of battle?"

"Wouldn't I deserve it?" Dirk asks dryly. "I’m the enemy, after all."

Jake's face falls. "I don't...know," he says. "Earlier, you said...” Melancholy seeps through his hunched posture. ”Is this desert really Mother's fault?"

Dirk nods. "Crockercorp's factories poisoned the environment and killed most of the population. The survivors were implanted with telecomms to keep them compliant."

"No—the telecomms keep us safe!"

"'Safe?' From _what?_ "

Jake opens his mouth, then looks down, swallowing. "I don't—I don't know."

"You don't know a lot of things," Dirk says bitterly.

Jake shakes his head. "I'm sorry, it's just...rather a lot to take in, you understand. Everything I grew up knowing to be the truth—just take _you_ for instance! You're nothing like I expected. You've shown me nothing but hospitality and kindness, and I...."

Jake's eyes flick up, bewildered, and find that Dirk's hostility has been replaced with pity, and dawning compassion. "I just—I wanted to see what lay beyond the forcefield," Jake says, half pleading. "I was so glad you came."

"You knew I was coming?" Dirk says sharply.

Jake shakes his head. "No," he replies, "but I'd hoped someone would."

“That seems ‘bout as likely as a flood in the desert.”

“Thinking positive's gotten me this far.”

Dirk chuckles, “You’re all about gambling on slim odds, huh?”

Jake can’t fathom why a blush is rising on his cheeks, but he smiles all the same. “Well, they never seem slim to me.”

Dirk freezes. His face scrunches into incredulity and Jake wonders if he said something wrong—

“Strider...?”

_Plop._

“Oh!”

Rain. Real, wet, drip-dropping _rain._

Dirk looks up through speechlessness and the leaky skylight. “...How did you do that?”

_“Me?”_

For the first time since they’d met, Strider smiles. “Gotta be. This is— hell, it’s more than improbable. You said it was going to rain and it did. Ain’t a coincidence.”

Jake grins. “Pish-posh! The way I see it, you just have to have a little hope!”

“Hope?” Dirk snorts, raising his hand to catch the drops. “I left that behind long ago.”

“Strider...”

“Our best hope is to fuck up Crockercorp’s empire as much as possible before we die—that’s our way, and I’ve come to terms with that. Hope ain’t part of the picture.”

Jake seizes his shoulders. “Don’t say that!”

Dirk scoffs. "It's the truth. Everything is dead, Jake. You can't just hope and have everything work out all zippity-doo-dah."

"In my experience, hope has a lot of power."

Dirk says nothing, painfully aware of the hands on his shoulders.

“Hope's what brought me here, after all,” Jake murmurs. "Isn't it?"

Jake's hair is starting to curl from the rain, and when he shakes his head, water flies into Dirk’s face. “Oh—sorry,” he stammers when Dirk flinches, and starts to move away. Dirk reaches out instinctively, chasing him.

His hand finds Jake's temple, and the other man stills. Their eyes meet over the top of Dirk's shades.

 _Follow through,_ Dirk tells himself, and cards wet hair away from Jake’s eyes. He shivers when Dirk's fingers press against the damp shell of his ear, and his lips part.

“Dirk?”

_Follow through._

Their first kiss is too quick and their teeth click together. Dirk tries to withdraw, but Jake's hands cradle his face and guide him back. The second is smoother, softer. Jake's mouth moves under his own and for a moment Dirk's brain shuts down, overwhelmed, giddy, terrified, ecstatic—

When they pull apart, Jake rests his forehead against Dirk's own. “Ai caramba,” he breathes through his toothy smile.

“Heh,” a shiver shakes Dirk’s voice and he swallows hard. “Well, uh...”

“Y-yes?”

Dirk's huff is half laughter and all nerves. “Jake, I—”

_BEEP. BEEP._

The color drains from Dirk’s face.

_CROCKERMETER ALERT: HEART RATE BEYOND NORMAL LIMITS. INGEST A PHARMACEUTICAL PASTRY AT ONCE._

_"Blimey!"_ Jake shouts, leaping back. Dirk's mind runs a million scenarios—false memories, personality overrides—but Jake is furiously patting himself down, ripping at his clothing. When he peels a small, flat disc from his skin, their eyes meet with dawning horror.

Jake crushes it beneath his heel, but it's too late.

\--

As shadows mar the stormy sunrise, Roxy takes her sniper’s perch on the roof and Dirk ties emergency rations to Halley. His wound has hardly had time to scab over.

“Jake.” He looks at the boy drawing berettas by his side. Of course Jake would want to be the hero, what did he expect? “This might be it.”

“I know.” He just smiles that sweet, dopey smile. “I’m not as feather-headed as I appear, Strider. I’m prepared...and I’m sorry.”

Dirk shakes his head, water dripping from his sagging blond bangs. “Don’t be. I chose this life. I knew the consequences.”

“...Dirk?”

“Yeah?”

Jake gulps and tries to stop his hands from shaking. “Thanks. For everything.”

“No worries.” His smirk is wolfish, trying to cover his wavering voice, “I'm just glad I got at least one kiss before I kick the bucket.”

“Don’t be so pessimistic!” Jake chides despite his rising blush. “No one’s dying, not now.”

“The odds on me surviving this are a million to zero-point-zero-zero-one.”

The drones are close; Roxy has already begun sniping the frontrunners.

Jake just smiles. “Those odds don’t sound too bad to me.”

The fight erupts in a flurry of bullets and blows. Even injured, Dirk is barely an afterimage in the corner of Jake’s vision, leaving gashes in the unlucky metal that crosses his path. He carves his name into armor plating and his blade runs through android limbs, whistling like the wind. Jake’s pistols punctuate the fight with percussive blasts as he and Roxy fall into the gunner’s rhythm. The three of them are a well-oiled machine, natural gears churning, a juggernaut keeping the drones at bay.

For a time.

Crockercorp is a hydra: for each bot they break, two more spring up. They can’t keep this going forever. Every muscle screams and every strike burns and it seems unending until Jake’s knees buckle after a particularly loud blow to the noggin—

He's a puddle of unmoving Crockercorp red under the looming shadow of a model #413 battlebot, and Dirk can’t do a fucking thing about it—

Dirk doesn’t understand what happens next. He’s sprinting for Jake when time becomes a viscous sludge. He feels something pulling at his center, hooking unseen behind his ribs, tugging at his heart until he's outside himself, watching a broken boy clutch at his chest with a wounded arm. Then he's somewhere else, seeing a broken boy watch another broken boy who has fallen to his knees beside Jake’s body, staring at the shallow rise and fall of his chest with the growing hope that he isn’t as dead as he seems.

Then he's in eleven places at once, time ticks and tocks again, and every iteration of his heart knows exactly what to do:

Dirk Strider will fight until his last goddamn breath.

It is with eleven swords that the tides of battle turn, eleven broken boys with nothing left to lose, eleven roars from a lifetime of loss becoming one synchronized strike, wrecking bots left and right. Jake’s half-opened eyes catch the furious blur, but before he can fully regain consciousness, Roxy is hoisting him into Halley's seat.

“Dirk... he’s...”

Roxy’s mouth folds into a fine line. “I’ve got no clue.”

Jake winces as he tries his weight on a fractured leg. “He’s not dying today! We can’t—”

“Jake...”

“—He thinks this is his last stand and I’ve got to prove him wrong—”

“Jake—”

“—And by good Gwendolyn’s garters I’m not gonna—”

“JAKE!”

_“What?”_

Roxy locks on to something over his shoulder, and Jake turns to see a wall of green roar up behind him.

“...Jiminy fucking Christmas.”

Trees. A pack, a troop, a _hoard_ of trees, piercing the sky like gargantuan green lightning. They rise in a wave, a dark shadow crashing over the chaotic throng, and Dirk's selves dive out of the fray just before the branches spear the crimson drones and raise them to the clouds.

Jake realizes he’s forgotten to breathe. He gasps as a Dirk ( _the_ Dirk) swings onto the motorcycle in front of him and Roxy leaps onto the back. Some base rhythm _tha-THUNKs_ in Dirk’s core; Jake can hear it through his ribs, and he swears that he _glows._ He isn’t sure if he cleaves to Dirk so tightly because he's terrified of falling from the speeding bike, or if he’s so scared of losing him that he can’t bring himself to let go.

A few drones shudder and quake in an attempt at automated pursuit. Behind them, a reverse wildfire rips apart the hot, muddy sand and erects a forest in its place—turning the dead earth into a verdant sea rippling outwards behind the three rebels as they speed through the desert, away from the husk of dead lives past and into the arms of future jungles once again full. 


End file.
